Updated 1:33 pm, Monday, July 25, 2011

Family and neighbors who had frantically searched for a missing child were heartbroken Sunday, coping with the tragic discovery of the girl's body inside an old microwave oven in her backyard.

San Antonio police believe the girl, identified by relatives as Rebecca Maria Herrera, 6, climbed inside the microwave in the 4200 block of Wild Oak Drive, near W.W. White Road, and somehow became trapped Saturday. Her body was found several hours after she was reported missing. The incident is being investigated as an accidental sudden death, police said.

Relatives said they were shocked and devastated, declining further comment at the scene Saturday and when reached at the home Sunday morning.

An intensive search for Rebecca, the daughter of an SAPD bicycle patrol officer, was launched when she was reported missing around 7 p.m. Saturday. Neighbors and police searched for the girl by knocking on doors, peering down alleys and calling her name, neighbors said. Eagle, the SAPD helicopter, combed the neighborhood from the air.

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According to neighbors, the girl was home with her mother at the time. Rebecca's father, 38-year-old John Herrera, was in Florida. Around 10 p.m., Rebecca's brother and a police officer found her, officials said. The brother, whose age was not immediately released, had no cause to check the microwave, which was sitting on top of some heating, ventilation and air conditioning equipment along the side of the house, police said, but opened it randomly, police said.

“All of a sudden, we heard people screaming that the baby was in the microwave,” said a next-door neighbor who wished only to give her last name, Garcia. “We just couldn't imagine — how does the baby get into a microwave?”

Police said the girl was small and liked to hide. She might have crawled in and closed the door accidentally, police said, or closed it not knowing it may not reopen from inside. An autopsy report is pending.

On Sunday, Garcia and her husband were straightening up their backyard, which was swarming with police officers during and after the search Saturday night. Garcia said she's known Rebecca's father, John, for more than 30 years, and couldn't imagine how the family was coping with the loss. The couple has several children older than Rebecca and are good parents, she said.

“I didn't sleep,” she said. “They are really nice kids, and it's because of their upbringing. (The Herreras) are very good parents.”

Stephanie Almendarez and her small daughter, who live across the street, held back tears as they watched investigators enter Herrera's home. Her children would often play with the little girl, and her husband and sons had ridden their bicycles around the block earlier as part of the search team.

A mother of five, she could not imagine the family's pain, Almendarez said.

“I heard somebody yell, ‘I found her,' and then I heard crying,” she said. “I am shocked. I thought she was OK. I've never seen anything like this.”